Part 18

This effort, however creditable to the good taste of the city, is premature, and must be doomed to more failures than one before it permanently succeeds. A refined taste for the best kind of music is not consequent upon the erection of an opera-house, nor is it a feeling to be created at will. Even in the metropolis of England, with a capital so disproportionate, and possessing such superior facilities for the attainment of novelty, did the continuance of this refined amusement depend solely upon the love of good music, it would quickly die, if not be forgotten.

From time to time, a small, but efficient and really good Italian troop, will, beyond doubt, find liberal encouragement in the great northern cities, and also in New Orleans, provided they make a short stay in each; but, rapidly as events progress here, I will undertake to predict that a century must elapse before even New York can sustain a permanent operatic establishment.

JOURNAL CONTINUED.

NEW YEAR'S DAY IN NEW YORK.

With an unclouded sky, and a sun as bright and genial as we would desire on a May morning, the first day of January 1834 makes its bow to the New York public; and in no place does this same day meet heartier welcome, or witness better cheer.

On this day, from an early hour, every door in New York is open, and all the good things possessed by the inmates paraded in lavish profusion. The shops and banks alone are closed: Mammon for this day sees his altars in one spot on earth deserted. Meantime every sort of vehicle is put in requisition; and if a man owns but a single acquaintance in the wide city, he on this day sets forth in kind heart to seek and shake him by the hand.

On this day all family bickerings are made up; fancied or real wrongs admitted, explained, and forgiven. The first twenty-four hours of the new year in New York is a right Treve de Dieu, during which foes cease from strife, the long divided are re-united, and friendly compacts renewed and drawn closer: even Avarice, more wary of approach than the hare, on this day forgets to bolt his door, or calculate the cost of bidding welcome to his visitor.

The stranger is also made sensible of the benevolent influence of this kindly day, if I may draw any inference from my own case. At an early hour a gentleman of whom I had a slight knowledge entered my room, accompanied by an elderly person I had never before seen, and who, on being named, excused himself for adopting such a frank mode of making my acquaintance, which he was pleased to add he much desired, and at once requested me to fall in with the custom of the day, whose privilege he had thus availed himself of, and accompany him on a visit to his family.

I was the last man on earth likely to decline an offer made in such a spirit; so, entering his carriage which was in waiting, we drove to his house in Broadway, where, after being presented to a very amiable lady, his wife, and a pretty, gentle-looking young girl, his daughter, I partook of a sumptuous luncheon, drank a glass of champagne, and, on the arrival of other visitors, made my bow, well pleased with my visit.

My host now begged me to make a few calls with him, explaining, as we drove along, the strict observances paid to this day throughout the State, and tracing the excellent custom to the early Dutch colonists.

I paid several calls in company with my new friend, at each place met a hearty welcome, and witnessed the same abundant preparation; but to lunch at each was, with the best intentions possible, quite out of the question. After a considerable round, my companion suggested that I might possibly have some compliments to make on my own account, and so leaving me, begged me to consider his carriage perfectly at my disposal.

This was very kind, but I at the time knew only two or three families; and indeed, on being left to myself in solitary state, where every carriage that whirled by was filled with merry stranger faces, my courage oozed away. So, leaving a card or two, and making a couple of hurried visits, I returned to my hotel, to think over the many beneficial effects likely to grow out of such a charitable custom, and to wish for its continued observance.

We have days enough of division in each year, and should indeed welcome and cherish one which inculcates peace and good-will to all; a day on which little coolnesses are explained away, past kindnesses confirmed, and injuries consigned to oblivion.

At night, the theatre was filled to suffocation by a joyous throng, although this portion of the season is not propitious to theatricals; but on to-day, as though no house must be left unvisited by any of its ordinary frequenters, the Park came in for a full participation in the benefit of this honoured custom.

Friday, 3rd.--The prevailing topics of the new year are the President and his quondam chum, Major Jack Downing; the agitation of the community on the Bank question becoming daily more violent, as the limitation placed on credit embarrasses trade by narrowing its resources. I observe, however, that, in the midst of much wordy violence, the bulk of the people appear confident that matters will, to use a coinage of their own, "eventuate for their ultimate benefit." Meanwhile, the government and the laws appear equally omnipotent; and although much embarrassment is unquestionably felt in the money-market, and all stock become unseasonably low for the sellers, yet is the country generally admitted to be very prosperous, and perfectly able to meet this shock without any permanent or ruinous difficulty. We shall see.

Went to Mrs. H----'s box at the opera,--the "Donna del Lago," for Bordogni's benefit: a very pretty woman, very well instructed; but with a little pipe, in which sweetness cannot make up for want of force. Fanti, a really good actress, and, although with a veiled voice, a capital singer, is not so much considered, I discover, as Bordogni.

The house was quite filled, the boxes rejoicing in a display of pretty faces few salles d'opera might be admitted to rival. The prevailing head-dress exceedingly showy and fanciful, a little too much so perhaps:--but these are doings which, after all, change with each season; therefore fashion can alone be arbiter. On the subject of beauty I speak fearlessly, all men, having clear eyesight, being, upon this point, admitted as competent witnesses. The parterre, too, was occupied by a few parties of well-dressed women; but its prevailing character, stalls included, was sombre and great-coatish,--not quite up to the pit of the King's Theatre;--there was more applause though, therefore I presume more enjoyment, which is the main object after all. At the close of the performance several delicate bouquets, together with a pretty coronal or two of choice flowers, were showered on the stage in compliment to the fair beneficiere.

Wednesday, 12th.--Winter has at length arrived in person, and his active bridge-maker is laying for him a firm icy path across the waters. It was reported yesterday that the passage between Staten Island and New Jersey was no longer open, Amboy Creek being thickly frozen from Newark Bay to the Raritan. On reaching the steamboat this morning, I found that the report was a correct one, and that our only practicable passage lay through the Narrows and round the south end of Staten Island. The occasion thus presented of a winter view of the bay quite reconciled me to this more exposed and circuitous route, as it, in truth, amply compensated for it.

It was just seven A.M. when I reached the dock where the boat lay, to all appearance firmly imbedded in thick ice; the river, I perceived, was still pretty clear. Punctual as usual, the bell ceased to clang; the paddle-wheels were vigorously applied; and in a few moments we burst our bonds, thrusting the thick flakes of ice aside, and darting into the clear river free from all farther impediment.

There were very few passengers, and I had the promenade deck to my exclusive use. Although day had not long broke, the clearness and purity of the atmosphere gave to the most distant parts of the landscape an outline cold and distinct, and brought all objects apparently much nearer to each other, and to the looker-on, than they had ever before appeared. The city of Jersey, the woods of Hoboken, and the far-off bluffs of the Palisadoes, were each seen to stand separated and alone; not blended together into one harmonizing mass, as, through the medium of a rich warm atmosphere, I had hitherto viewed them. The effect was for a moment to render this scene, which frequent observation had made familiar, quite strange to me; and at the same time to invest its now separate portions with new and peculiar attractions.

The yet quiet city soon dropped astern; and on a good plan of its streets one might have traced the earliest and most notable of its sections, if not the particular houses, by the thin spiral lines of smoke which curled distinctly high above the chimneys from which they escaped.

We held our course close along the east side of Staten Island; and as we shot by the quarantine establishment, with its hospital and many offices, the sun rose, without one attendant cloud, over the forest heights of Brooklyn, burnishing, as with gold, every window and weathercock opposed to its radiance.

The drooping boughs of the graceful willow tribes, and all the neighbouring shrubs, which only a moment before I had shivered to look upon, bent down, as they appeared, beneath a load of ungenial icicles, were now, as though touched by some enchanter's wand, sparkling and brilliant, reminding one of the diamond-growing trees of young Aladdin's cave.

The Narrows were next passed, but the view seaward was bleak and cheerless: the Neversink hills for the first time appearing to me worthy such a high-sounding distinction. Not a symptom of frost was here, although the wind had ceased to stir the waters of the bay, and to the sun alone was left the task of opposing the advance of the ice-king. Sol, though with diminished powers, had made a glorious rally on this day; for not a thicket or creek within sight but rejoiced in his cheering rays, and gladly owned his supremacy.

The smoothness of the sea enabled our boat to make rapid way; and by a little after ten o'clock we were landed at Amboy, where we found the train awaiting our arrival. As we left our first stage, Hights-town, an accident occurred similar to the one I had, on my last trip southward, seen attended by such fearful consequences. We were proceeding, luckily at a moderate rate, when the axle of the engine-tender broke in two: the car occupied by myself and three others led the van, yet the first intimation we got of the break-down of our tender was our running foul of it with a bump that fairly unshipped us all, pitching the occupiers of the hind-seats head-on into the laps of those vis-a-vis to them. Happily, this was the worst of the present mischance: the engine was speedily arrested, a sound axle drawn from the near car to replace the one fractured, myself and the others belonging to the carriage thus hauled out of the line were stowed in, as supernumeraries, elsewhere, and, after a delay, of some forty minutes, off we bowled again.

Halting for a few moments at Bordentown, where the Delaware steamer waits when the river is practicable, it now spread away below us in a solid mass; and we pursued our journey by the railroad provided for such seasons so far as it was at this time completed, that is, for some eight or nine miles farther on. This point achieved, we discovered a group of the clumsy-looking stage-coaches of the country, to the number of twelve, each having a team of four horses, ready harnessed, standing amongst the trees below.

The cold was by this time extreme; bustle was the word, therefore, amongst all parties,--drivers, porters, and passengers; and in a quarter of an hour the transfer was completed, the luggage packed, the people arranged, and the caravan in motion. The place had quite a wild, lone, forest air; and it was a curious scene to view the bustle, and hear the noise, so uncongenial to the spot, and no less so to observe the coaches wheeling about amongst the trees as each Jehu sought to make the best of his way into the lane at a little distance.

Miserably uncomfortable as the driver's seat is before these machines, I, as usual where the course was strange to me, requested leave to share it with him. I had cast about to select a team; and was soon seated, well rolled in broadcloth and bear-skin, behind four dark bays that might have done credit to a better judgment.